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| 26 March 2004 | Friday | 04 Safar 1425 |
Govt rejects opposition's call to halt Wana operation
ISLAMABAD, March 25: The government rejected on Thursday opposition's calls to halt military operation in the South Waziristan agency where security forces were hunting foreign militants and their local supporters.
"This operation will continue until we wipe out terrorists from there," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told the National Assembly after a two-hour debate marked by noisy protests and separate walkouts by opposition parties.
The minister side-stepped an opposition demand that the government call a round-table conference of all political parties to discuss the foreign policy and the fate of foreign militants hiding in the tribal region and their local harbourers. However, he invited members of opposition parties to come to the house standing committee for his ministry to get detailed briefings about the military operation.
After speeches by 14 members, Mr Hayat spoke to an opposition-less house that also faced the quorum problem after the PPP, PML-N and the MMA walked out separately, complaining that not enough of their members were allowed to speak on an adjournment motion they themselves had moved.
But Wasi Zafar of the PML-Q, who presided over the house as a member of the panel of chairmen in the absence of Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, asked the interior minister to wind up the debate which had already exhausted the two-hour limit set for it.
He also ignored points of order by some opposition members who had stayed behind to point out that the house lacked the quorum. The interior minister, who accused the opposition of adopting a non-serious attitude, said there had been no military invasion in Wana and the operation was not directed against any Pakistani.
"This operation is against foreign terrorists present there... and those who give them material support." He said the security forces were respecting the tribal traditions and giving full opportunity to local jirgas to play their role.
The minister also referred to a Thursday noon deadline given to tribal elders to secure release of officials and paramilitary troops made hostage but did not speak about its outcome.
Mr Hayat said about 20 "foreign terrorists" had been killed so far and 30 to 35 more bodies were expected to be recovered later. The minister said casualties on the other side would have been much higher if the paramilitary forces had not exercised restraint to "avoid maximum collateral damage" even at the risk of their own lives.
He rejected charges that Pakistan was acting under the US pressure. MMA members repeatedly chanted "stop Wana operation", "whoever is friend of America is traitor" while they walked out of the house as the interior minister began his speech, following separate walkouts by the PPP and PML-N.
MMA acting president Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who opened the debate on an opposition adjournment motion, asked the government to call an all-party conference to discuss what he called a "foreign policy U-turn" by President Pervez Musharraf and means to extricate the country from "a dangerous situation".
He accused the government of following US dictates, and said Washington had designated Pakistan as a major non-Nato ally apparently to work against the interests of Islamic states such as Iran, Syria and Afghanistan, where he said a friendly Taliban government had been replaced by a pro-Indian government.
The MMA leader said the Wana operation had lowered the military's morale because it had to act under "American command". PPP's Shah Mehmood Qureshi called for a "bipartisan consensus" as he accused the government of trying to "shove the issue under the carpet" and then mishandling it, with the result that Pakistani troops were being killed and made hostages.
"Even our allies have shown lack of confidence in what Pakistan is doing," he said in a reference to the United States. Pakhtunkhawa Milli Awami Party chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai said the only way to save Pakistan from the present crisis was to repent what he called a policy of embracing "external wars as our own wars" and make parliament the fountainhead of power.
PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan accused the military of "killing our own Muslims in a war of others" and creating a situation akin to that of former East Pakistan by alienating the tribal people who themselves had been defending the country's western borders.
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